What Should Recess Look Like? Are Children Frittering Their Time Away?

by: SAMK

Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 08:45:00 AM CDT

D.L. Stewart is a columnist for the Dayton Daily News. His section in the newspaper is titled, "That's Life". D.L. is a humorist and I always get a chuckle out of his articles.

One morning, I opened the Life Section of the paper to the headline, "No More Frittering Away Time at Recess". Being the educator I am and having always enjoyed my recess time. I just knew I had to read this article.

To summarize, this was the gist of D.L.'s column. He refers to the four "r's" that schools are now teaching: reading, riting , rithmetic and recess. Tongue in cheek, he says we are probably poor spellers since we still consider writing and arithmetic as part of the four "r's". HMMM.

A report came out in the New York Times stating that school districts across the country have determined that too many children have been frittering away their recess periods with such unproductive activities as aimless running, pointless jumping and playing games that do not have structured rules. How did they solve this problem? They hired "recess coaches". HMMM.

Florida's Broward County, (one of our accounts) replaced freestyle recesses with teacher-supervised physical activities in 2007. In 2005 they made headlines by outlawing running on the playgrounds.  

According to the Times' article, a growing number of schools see the use of recess coaches as a way to "curb bullying and behavior problems, foster social skills and address concerns for obesity in children.

Now on the opposing side, Dr. Romina M. Barros, an assistant clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx feels the new structured recess programs ignore the benefits that children may get from daydreaming, solving problems among themselves without an adult referee and merely being "free to do what they choose to do" for at least a small part of their school day. Dr. Barros also feels that if the playground time merely becomes an outdoor classroom then children don't have the time for their brain to just relax.

Some parents agree with Dr. Barros. In one New Jersey Township, hundreds of them signed a protest petition after the school district replaced recess with a "midday fitness" program.

To think that kids may no longer have the option of spending recess just hanging around the swing sets, talking with friends, playing "Red Rover", Ring-Around-the Rosy, Hopscotch, tag or just being outside and enjoying nature. Those things were some of my most favorite memories of elementary school. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to enjoy those experiences. Well one good thing, recess coaches are not passing out grades. What a relief. They can't flunk four-square....Yet. HMMMMMM